China's economy would crumble a little if it could not sell anything outside anymore. Imagine a few billions of people losing their current level of life in China... a good recipe for regime change.
Your suggestion is that the rest of the world should play nice with China, and accept an invasion of a free nation (Taiwan) and its people because not doing so would hurt Chinese nationals within China?
Chinese people suffering due to the CCP is bad, certainly. But what's worse is another country (having nothing to do with the CCP) suffering for it.
So if EU got its shit together and formulated a coherent unified foreign policy - it would be at the very least on equal terms with both US and China. Hence why everyone (from Putin, to China to even our allies the US) are so invested in breaking EU apart (and even succeeding - the Brexit).
Unfortunately (?) not. By nominal GDP the US is the largest. By PPP-adjusted GDP China comes first.
> So if EU got its shit together and formulated a coherent unified foreign policy - it would be at the very least on equal terms with both US and China.
On approximately equal terms, yes, probably.
Second largest, at $17.1tn, after the US ($22.7tn), but ahead of China ($16.6tn).[1]
> is by far the wealthiest region on the planet
North America is the wealthiest region, with the United States alone having a total wealth of $126tn. European wealth is around $103tn.[2]
1. World Economic Outlook Database, April 2021
2. https://www.credit-suisse.com/media/assets/corporate/docs/ab...